1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an inkjet apparatus, and more particularly to inkjet cartridges with an identifiable area and a method of preventing misplacing the inkjet cartridges in the inkjet apparatus.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The inkjet apparatus, such as a copy machine, facsimile machine, or inkjet printer, has become a necessity in modern life. The inkjet printer mainly includes a housing and a printing module situated inside the housing to perform the printing steps. The details of the printing module are described as follows.
Please refer to FIG. 1 and FIG. 2. FIG. 1 is a perspective view of an inkjet apparatus 10 having printhead cartridges 114a and 114b installed. FIG. 2 is a schematic drawing of a conventional printing module 100 in the inkjet apparatus 10. The printing module 100 includes a carriage 102, a rod 104, a print platform 106 and sidewalls 108a and 108b. The sidewalls 108a and 108b are set oppositely, and two ends of the rod 104 are respectively connected to the sidewalls 108a and 108b. The carriage 102, removably arranged on the rod 104, can move forward or backward over the print platform 106 along the direction of arrow 105, to accomplish the printing operation. The carriage 102 comprises the printed circuit boards (PCBs) 110a and 110b, and cartridge-setting slots 112a and 112b for placing the inkjet cartridges 114a and 114b therein. Also, there are flexible PCBs 116a and 116b attached at surfaces 115a and 115b of the inkjet cartridges 114a and 114b, respectively. When the inkjet cartridges 114a and 114b are respectively put into the cartridge-setting slots 112a and 112b, the flexible PCBs 116a and 116b electrically couple to the PCBs 110a and 110b at the carriage 102. Therefore, current conducted into the flexible PCBs 116a and 116b through the PCBs 110a and 110b and the inkjet apparatus 10 controls the movement of the carriage 102 and drives the inkjet cartridges 114a and 114b to eject ink.
Generally, two inkjet cartridges are adapted in a printing module 100. One is a single-color cartridge 114b, usually filled with black ink. The other is a color cartridge 114a, having separated ink reservoirs and filled with different color inks such as cyan, magenta, and yellow ink. In the commercial inkjet printer market, there are other colors of ink to be used, such as light black, light cyan, light magenta, and light yellow. In addition, a photo cartridge can also be used in combination with a color cartridge for printing high quality photographs.
However, the similar external appearances of the conventional homochromatic cartridge and the color cartridge confuse the user all the time. Consequently, the misplacement of cartridges in the carriage 102 occurs, which negatively affects the printing result. In order to put the homochromatic cartridge 114b and the color cartridge 114a into the correct positions in the carriage 102, which means that the flexible PCBs 116a and 116b are respectively electrically coupled to the PCBs 110a and 110b, some manufacturers try to create a difference in the cartridges 114a and 114b. For example, a different size can be used for each of the cartridges 114a and 114b. As shown in FIG. 2, the size of the cartridge 114a is larger than that of the cartridge 114b; correspondingly, the space of cartridge setting slot 112a is larger than that of the cartridge setting slot 112b. The inkjet cartridge can only be installed in the size-matched cartridge setting slot. Accordingly, the misplacement of cartridges can be prevented.
Also, some manufacturers make an improvement in the configuration of the cartridge, so that the user can visually distinguish the cartridge model and its matched cartridge setting slot. However, the cartridges are usually mass-produced. Changing the configuration of the cartridge will raise the production cost.